AMPHITRYON 4, Opera In Three Acts After Moliere
Harold Blumenfeld
About this work:
AMPHITRYON 4 [1962] - Opera in Three Acts. Night life of the gods. Centered around Jupiter's seduction of Alcmena, wife of General Amphitryon and ensuing complications lasting through three acts.
An early work, of which composer approves.
Musical episodes include a BATTLE FUGUE OF THEBANS and SPARTANS; use of "Skolion of Seikilos", ancient musical fragment, throughout Victory Orgy, which includes a nude Gymnopaedia]; passionate Love Music; exuberantly coloratura Odes; hilarious disguised-induced identity confusions.......
Sample SCORE PAGES: both vocal and orchestral, on site.......
Composer's libretto after MOLIERE......
Three-movement orchestral synthesis of opera performed by St Louis Symphony back in 1967 season, de Carvalho conducting.
Music of Love and War, multi-disguises, identity mixups, imbroglios galore.
>>>Former Pub. MMB Music Inc..Now published by COMPOSER: blumenf@wustl.edu
Full score (3 volumes) $240.
Vocal score $110.
SCORE SAMPLES---
Two excerpts from Act Two BATTLE FUGUE offered - one from vocal score, one from orchestral score, preceded by orientation page......
Opera's "MINIATURE OVERTURE" [separately listed on this site] performed some thirty times......
ON THE OPERA----
The Place: Milky Way, and on Earth.
The Plot---
JUPITER is obsessed with beauty of ALCMENA, wife of Theban general AMPHITRYON. Up on Milky Way, MERCURY helps disguise the super-god as Amphitryon, coaching him in mortal ways. GODESS NIGHT rolls by, arranging for extra-long night for Jupiter's descent and his disguised, impassioned seduction of Alcmena - this while the real Amphitryon is off at war.... Love Music.....Meantime MERCURY has disguised himself as SOSIE, Amph's henpecked orderly. He descends to enjoy mischievous fun with Sosie's shrewish wife CLEANTHIS. Double-takes ensue throughout.....
But back in Thebes, just as a satisfied JUPITER leaves ALCMENA, AMPHITRYON himself - on wings of sudden victory - unexpectedly returns home. ALCMENA, astonished: "..but you just left!.." Leading to argument, consternation, confusion......
There have been BATTLE SCENES, a VICTORY ORGY featuring choral singing of the SKOLION OF SEIKILOS (a most ancient surviving example of music notation), a wild nude GYMNOPEDIA, and a deliciously melismatic ODE - to Alcmena - drunkenly duetted by Amphitryon and his military poet laureate.......
But finally, at opera's end, JUPITER descends, appearing before all - including Amphitryon - in his Amph disguise. The TWO AMPHITRYONS stand shockingly face to face, to general amazement. But now the god reveals his true self to astonished assemblage: he has devised ruse whereby all confusions are resolved to satisfaction of everyone - all but poor Amphitryon himself.....
THE RUB: the god's night with Alcmena will be commemorated for all time with birth of HERCULES......
Enroute - to elaborate - there's been a BATTLE PANTOMIME - a fugue with Theban horns routing Spartan trumpets; a wild VICTORY ORGY; an unbridled GYMNOPEDIA; a voluptuous semi-drunken ODE to Alcmena, and slapstick at every turn.......
Soli include 3 sopranos, 2 mezzos, contralto; 5 tenors, 2 baritones, 4 bass. Chorus, dancers.......
Orchestra: 2 flutes incl piccolo, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon and contrabn;
3 horn, 2 trumpet, 2 trombone;
timpani, 2 percussion incl celesta;
pre-recorded space-music tape for Jupiter's downs and ups; and strings.
COMPOSER'S APOLOGIA!---
...I composed my AMPHITRYON 4, fourth operatic treatment of ancient legend, in Palma, St Louis, Paris when quite young. It is my first opera, my first major work. Its jolly MINIATURE OVERTURE has enjoyed many performances.
...Carvalho performed a symphonic synthesis of opera on St Louis Symphony's 1968 series.
...This work comes from an earlier lifetime. Subsequently I struck out in new directions, leaving AMPHITRYON'S neo-classic quasi-romantic language behind. I withdrew my opera from mind and memory, for I had discovered literature's unparalelled trinity. Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud opened new dimensions for me, new captivating vistas. It was especially the explosive, incandescent writing of the young Rimbaud which urged me on into dangerous new world of word and sound - and to invention of my own authentic voice.
My past work was forgotten, and with it, earlier music I have now come to admire. Here forty years later I have rediscovered my "AMPHITRYON". Re-reading score gives me shock of delight: I react to this early piece as if it were the work of another - and with enthusiasm.
AMPHITRYON 4 is joyous, mischievous. Abounds in melodic outpourings, contains passionate love music counterbalanced with sequences of outrageous slapstick.
In earlier mentioned BATTLE SCENE: the Theban horns routing of Spartan trumpets is backed by a headlong orchestral fugue, the subject of which mutates; the wild VICTORY ORGY choral music is sung in the ancient Greek of its "Skolion" quotation. The mentioned drunken coloratura ODE to Alcmena is modeled after a similar outpouring from "Incoronazione di Poppea" in which Nero drunkenly waxes melismatic over Poppea in Monteverdi's masterpiece. [Earlier Boris Goldvsky and I had mounted American stage premiere of "POPPEA" in Boston. I was just fresh out of Yale, had persuaded him to produce it. Later on, Hugo Weisgall told me of admiration for my opera - especially for Battle Fugue. But I had put it all out of mind.]
Upon rediscovery of work composed by earlier version of myself, I publish vocal score, and, in three volumes, the work's orchestral score.
Now, finally - together with SEASONS IN HELL and BORGIA INFAMI - and the comic FOURSCORE and BREAKFAST WALTZES, I take AMPHITRYON 4, my first-born, back into my embrace.
I hasten to stress that I find the vocal music, the melodic lines, vocal ensembles and choral passages to be impeccable - full of variety, passion, racy humor. They will carry the day for AMPYHITRYON 4, one day, whether or not I'm around to enjoy it.
I further note that orchestral score of AMPHITRYON 4 is scored in old-fashioned way - with transposition of clarinets [A and Bb] and F horns WRITTEN INTO SCORING. "AMPHITRYON 4" is only score in which this messy procedure is employed. All other works are in civilized C, untransposed - including newly revised scoring of the opera's MINIATURE OVERTURE.
Year composed: 1962
Duration: 02:20:80
Ensemble type: Opera/Theater:Opera, More than One Act, with Chorus
Instrumentation: 2 Flute, 1 Oboe, 2 Clarinet, 1 Bassoon, 1 Contrabassoon, 3 Horn in F, 2 Trumpet, 2 Trombone, 1 Timpani, 2 Percussion (General), 220 Strings (General), ,3 Soprano soloist(s), ,2 Mezzo-Soprano soloist(s), ,1 Alto soloist(s), ,5 Tenor soloist(s), ,2 Baritone soloist(s), ,2 Bass-Baritone soloist(s), ,2 Bass soloist(s), 4 S, 4 A, 4 T, 4 TT, 4 B, 4 BB, 1 Prerecorded Sound (Tape/CD/Other)
Instrumentation notes: Full score transposes clarinets in A or Bb, and horns in F. (AMPHITRYON 4 is composer's only score in which clarinets and horns are transposed in score - outmoded practise which does not occur in composer's subsequent scores, all scored in C, including revised 2005 "Miniature Overture" scoring.